Composing and Engendering the Future

"Future generation"

How does the future emerge into the present? How does potential become actuality?
What are the cognitive traps associated with phrases such as: "where does the
future come from" and "the far-distant future" ? How are present initiatives
established as future realities? Why does past understanding appear so quaint
from the present and what does this say of present understandings that are taken
so seriously now?

The sustainability of global conversation or dialogue is therefore viewed as
necessarily dynamic rather than static. Insights from chaos theory and strange
attractors merit attention (Judge, 1993b). Its meta-stable nature ensures its
coherence by engendering "futures". Global conversations thus evolve through
"generations", necessarily accompanied by schisms that challenge any previous
sense of coherence. "Participants" in a conversation today are the children
of those participating yesterday, or an hour ago -- even if they are physically
indistinguishable. As with computer backups, one can usefully speak of grandfather-father-son
relationships between one's own successive "incarnations" in social intercourse.

How then is the future generated? How does one understand the nature of a future
generation from one's current mode of comprehension? How does one comprehend
across the generation gap -- and seek comprehension in return -- if only by
oneself?

Whilst such questions are challenging for society as a whole, they are even
more challenging for oneself. Each person has multi-generational qualities,
from the "child within" to the nascent elder. In the process of maturation,
the challenges of communication between one's own internal generations become
increasingly evident. They can no longer be satisfactorily projected onto the
outside world.

How does one engender a future -- preferred or otherwise? Is there some internal
procreative process, as suggested by depth psychology's enthusiasm for alchemical
symbolism? Reproductive biology certainly achieves a future generation through
mating. How does a new generation of reality-handling acquire viability and
inspire confidence within one's own psyche? Can what is superseded be truly
cast off like a reptilian skin, or must past generations be carried with us
into the future --"unto seven generations"?

Whilst there is of course merit in speculating about future generations in
centuries or millennia to come, there is another kind of inquiry into future
generation which merits reflection. As implied above, a future generation, in
the developmental or psychological sense of the maturation of an individual,
has its own challenges. But of even greater challenge is the much more immediate
focus of how one engenders the immediate future -- over the next hours or minutes.

It is easy to argue that this has nothing to do with the "future" as framed
by this conference. But this may be a flaw in the way future studies is understood
and a reason for its marginalization. Do futurists suffer from conceptual presbyopia?
Failure to attend to how the immediate future is determined by "doing" in the
present moment, may obscure modes of understanding vital to meaningful insight
into the future of biological generations -- to the epochs in which future studies
may prefer to roam. Any sense of well-being is associated with the immediate
present, rather than with the distant future. It is now that the help from "You
and I" is required by the conference theme, whether for the young or the elderly.

How does future generation occur on this scale -- and what insights does it
offer for understanding on the larger scale? As various schools of meditation
have it, one attends to a certain complex of events for a while (seconds, minutes
or hours), as an act combining mindfulness, empathy and action -- with, or without,
others. Then, by distraction or choice, that focus dies and one passes on to
some other complex of events. This process can be experienced as a sequence
of generations of attention foci -- maybe returning cyclically to a former focus.
It is through this process that one engenders a future into which one is then
borne (Sogyal Rinpoche, 1994). Any practice, discipline or habit can be considered
a form of "meditation" in this sense.

When a generation is understood as taking some 14 "years", possibility of change
is perceived as limited by most. But understood as lived cycles of experience
many hundreds of "generations" may take place within that same period of years.
Such generations may be existentially more significant, and give rise to more
variety, than is often associated with conventional thinking about the future
100, 1,000 or 5,000 years hence -- which is usually unchallenged by the reality
of experiential change.Focus on the scope for change through psychological generation
may well offer vital clues to change over longer periods of years. Greater attentiveness
is therefore required to the potential emergence of fundamentally new varieties
of significance over such periods.

From this perspective the challenge becomes how creatively to traverse a succession
of generations -- the "Wheel of Life" for some Eastern religions (Sogyal Rinpoche,
1994). Various approaches might be taken to this psychological "reincarnation"
process through many "little deaths". The generations could be "managed", as
attempted by those favouring highly structured schedules (and armed with pocket
"organizers"). One contrast would be to live the succession completely spontaneously
as a child of the moment. They could be "navigated" with the spirit of an explorer,
entrepreneur or opportunist. They might even be "surfed". They could be treated
as an aesthetic exercise in composition or design -- "composing" a lifestyle
as explored by Mary Catherine Bateson (1990). Or, like a breeder, focus could
be placed on "breeding" better futures by combining suitable quality bloodlines
engendered in past experience. The process could even be treated as an exercise
in "gardening" a life -- life husbandry. In each case blending constraints from
the past with potential distractions by the unforeseen creates pitfalls and
opportunities. What strange new insights and disciplines will the future bring
to this process?

Composing the future

The argument has stressed presence in the present moment -- from which futures
may be engendered. This is contrasted with projection of the present into the
future to avoid the realities of the moment. Any such projection is understood
as necessarily superficial (namely two-dimensional) -- if not merely some form
of linear extrapolation. This precludes meaningful transfer into the future
of a vehicle for experience of any higher dimensionality. Presentations are
acclaimed as meaningful efforts to do this -- but any perceived success is at
the price of entrapping people in two-dimensional futures -- in pre-sentations.

Given such anchoring in the present, how might a future be more fruitfully
understood? What might be ways of thinking about how it is engendered? The latter
term itself contrasts intriguingly with the sexist emphasis of linear projections
so evident in most "manstream" thinking about the future, as argued
by Janis Birkeland (http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/TPP/birkeland.html).
"Engendered" however suggests a growth process originating from a
reproductive cycle -- implying cross-fertilization between quite distinct meme-pools.
This suggests that a more appropriate metaphor might be that of gardening or
cultivation. Several alternative metaphors might well be considered as necessary
complements to encompass the complexities of the human present/future interface,
including:

composing / orchestrating: This has a design emphasis, perhaps best exemplified
by Christopher Alexander's much-cited Timeless Way of Building and
Pattern Language. The concern is to ensure that things are appropriately
configured in place -- recalling the concerns of feng shui. Mary Catherine
Bateson has drawn attention to the human dimensions of this possibility in
the title of her book Composing a Life. With respect to entelechy,
Jean Houston refers to development of ability to "self-orchestrate across
states of consciousness" (http://www.jeanhouston.org/printer_friendly.html).

gardening / cultivation: This stresses the biological patterning that is
presumably echoed in viable psychological processes governing the present/future
interface. Given the design, what is to be cultivated in each of the resulting
niches and how will they relate to one another to engender a fruitful future?
A Chinese proverb makes the point in relating biology and culture: "If
you are planning a year ahead then sow a seed. If you are planning ten years
ahead plant a tree. If you are planning a hundred years ahead educate the
people". Darrell Posey (Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity,
1999) has assembled many writings reflecting the importance of this dimension
to indigenous peoples seeking to ensure the viability of their cultural vehicle
in relation to the environment.

invoking / singing the future into being: "Singing the world"
into being is significant in traditional cultures, emphasizing that design
and cultivation may be necessary but are not sufficient. The concept has been
promoted by Maurice Merleau-Ponty. A particular quality of attention in the
moment is required to engender a viable new pattern for the future. It is
this quality which provides the invariance around which the transformation
can occur. Aspects of this may be best suggested by a Sufi story that alludes
to the process of creating a door-less golden cage, that may at some time
prove attractive to the spirit or muse that then takes up residence there
- but which may also leave at any time. In this sense the container is not
a constraint but a frame of reference through which higher dimensionality
may be experienced.

puzzling: One metaphor often used in selling projects is that of a "door"
or "gateway" to the future -- which a proposal may open for those
who subscribe to it. This metaphor is echoed in myths and dramas about secret
doors to other realms. A contemporary TV drama uses the metaphor of a stargate,
echoing many science fiction tales about cross-galaxy and/or time travel.
All of these have an inorganic emphasis from which biological and psychological
dimensions are absent. Depth psychology, folk tales, and various religious
traditions all point to the need to balance incommensurable psychological
functions appropriately in order to open "doors" into new psychic
spaces -- as part of the individual's personal evolutionary journey into the
future. This balance is often symbolized by centro-symmetrical patterns (mandalas,
etc) that are associated with magical gateways. But achieving this empowering
balance is traditionally described as somewhat akin to solving a psycho-philosophical
puzzle or riddle (like a Zen koan) -- one has to puzzle one's way into the
future to navigate the new cognitive space. This raises the question of how
to configure, juxtapose and superpose sets of categories (3, 4, 5, etc) constituting
the "door frame" governing cognition -- in order to pose the riddle
appropriately. Returning to the design metaphor, what is a composition with
such potentially transformative properties? Contemporary fascination with
astrology, geomancy and magic may be explained by the role of their configurations
as strange attractors within human culture.

Such emphasis on getting away from the present through "opening doors
to the future" may be the most effective protective mechanism of a nourishing
future. The future that is elsewhen is an illusory future marketed assiduously
by snake-oil salesmen playing with linear projections and two dimensional pre-sentations
(eg billboard and hoarding developmentalism). A futuristic space journey is
only viable if a vast amount of thought is given to learning about the system
that actually sustains people in the present. The cognitive vessel that can
sustain life into a desirable future is above all characterized by a multitude
of interacting feedback loops ensuring the collective integrity of different
systems. Whilst attention has been given to these in modern space technology,
almost none has been given to their psycho-social equivalents -- notably with
respect to the psycho-social design of space colonies.

From a psycho-social perspective, a fundamental metaphor to explore in this
connection is that of the Holy Grail and the quest for it. Within such myths
much energy is vainly expended on looking elsewhere for the power it represents
to transform the present into the future. However the tradition makes the point
that the physical form of the Holy Grail is quite ordinary, although recognizing
it requires another way of sensing -- with fatal consequences to the unwary.
In many of the early French texts the Saint Graal (as the vehicle or
container) is related to Sang Royal (as the contained). This suggests
the importance of the blood circulation metaphor as a system for sustaining
the integrity of the body in the present -- rather than elsewhen. In psycho-social
terms this integrity is exemplified by both a degree of "holiness"
and of "sovereignty" over the whole system (as implied by the associations
to royalty) -- effectively maintaining the coherence of a complex pattern of
feedback loops.

The integrative patterns of many traditional celtic designs might be seen as
mnemonics of this challenge (***). What are we educated not to recognize as
our "noble" heritage in the transformative integrity of our personal
experience of the coherence of the present moment? And yet at the same time
we are encouraged to move on to a better future -- abandoning irresponsibly
whatever is a drag -- often with language reminiscent of an archetypal venal
landlord requiring that the premises be vacated. What might be the patterns
concealed in the present moment that have the transformative power implied by
the Holy Grail -- if rightly comprehended?

As remarked by anthropologist Diana James (personal communication, 2001):

In the Christian tradition the divine consciousness was manifested in the
body and blood of Christ. This symbolic sacrifice of body and blood to create
new life, or reincarnate, or resurrect from death is common to many other
major creation myths and rituals. In the Grail legends originating in pagan
Hispano-Moorish myth the Grail vessel filled with blood was a feminine symbol
of rebirth or reincarnation in the Gnostic and Oriental sense. The Grail was
associated with the Horn of Plenty and the Sacred Heart, the union of masculine
and feminine. The strong sexual symbolism was sanitised by Christianity in
the 12th Century, but the association with life and death remained. The Grail
Temple at Montsalvatch, Mount of Salvation, was a model of the universe. The
Grail was kept inside a miniature model of the universe inside the main temple
under the dome.

There may be a message to the western world that sanitising this myth, taking
out the quest for the mysterious feminine principle, the blood of Christ is
now available at every chapel, has resulted in the modern death of spiritual
quest. No mystery, no secret, no quest - a truth the indigenous people (such
as the Australian Aborigines) know and hence keep Tjukurpa (the Dreaming)
alive with mystery, secret and essential questing of the individual to discover
the essential divine or creation spirit they manifest. Each individual and
the whole society must keep this consciousness alive in the continuous present.
Perhaps an essential element in the unfolding entelechy of the human race.

Knot being: to be or knot to be

In addition to celtic patterns, many contemporary artists and designers have
crafted knotted shapes of unusual aesthetic appeal -- increasingly with the
assistance of math visualization programs. As with the classic mobius strip,
these weave continuously around themselves modelling a finite but unbounded
space. They may model, more realistically than a sphere, the complex multidimensional
space in which we experience the moment (cf Ron Atkin, **) especially if they
are recognized as representing a dynamic, standing wave, flow condition. Some
may suggest a fourth dimension and how it is woven coherently into the other
three. Finalizing a fundamental relationship, such as marriage, may be described
as "tying the knot".

Although knots are a common metapor in a number of schools of spiritual development,
the relevance of knots to the problematique of the person was highlighted in
a much-cited study by psychiatrist Ronnie Laing (Knots, 1970):

There is something I don't know that I am supposed to know. I don't know
what it is I don't know, and yet am supposed to know, And I feel I look stupid
if I seem both not to know it and not know what it is I don't know. Therefore,
I pretend to know it. This is nerve-wracking since I don't know what I must
pretend to know. Therefore, I pretend to know everything.

Curiously a particular form of knot, reminiscent of a common celtic pattern,
has been used by Jacques Lacan to model an understanding of the person basic
to his particular school of psychiatry. The borromean knot is of the same class
as the interlinked rings on the Olympic flag. According to Lacan the body is
only an imaginary consistency, not an actual concrete whole. It is pierced by
losses that give rise to the desire to replace the lost object which, in turn,
gives rise to the scopic, invocatory, oral and anal partial drives which seek
to close up the "holed " body with substitute objects in the world. Lacan places
such an object at the center of the intertwined Borromean knot of real, imaginary
and symbolic orders -- something then returns from the primordial experience
of it which one can never regain as conscious memory or narrative. (http://www.academyanalyticarts.org/Ragla1.html)

Borromean knot

Traditional Celtic pattern

The approach has proven of interest to postmodern theories of crime as evidenced
by the work of Bruce Arrigo (1996) on the psychic configuration of existing
crimoinological reality. Lacan's later works examined Borromean knots as topological
constructions. His interest in such figurations was in providing a re-tooling
(a different graphing) of the psychic apparatus and the constitution of sense.
In that topography, Borromean knots are homologous; that is, they are corresponding
and interpretive devices which explain how sense production occurs, how it is
reproduced, and, therefore, how it ensures the stabilization of hierarchically
constituted discursive formations. Such knots are instructive mechanisms for
further appreciating the limitations of existing criminological theory to produce
discourses and narratives inclusive of a culturally diverse criminology. Lacan
was also interested in the use of borromean knots as a way of cultivating mythic
knowledge. Put another way, these knots were a critical means of discovering
replacement discourses; that is, grammars more compatible with the jouissance
of those whose voices and ways of knowing remain silenced (http://www.tryoung.com/archives/pomo-crm.htm#20b)

But Lacan's approach has been criticized from a feminist perspective by semiotician
Julia Kristeva (1980) using social theory that is a blend of linguistic and
psychoanalytic theory. She believes in the potentially revolutionary force of
the marginal and repressed aspects of language. She identifies the semiotic
with a repressed feminine libidinal system, and the symbolic with a masculine
libidinal system. Others have extended this dichotomy to higher dimensional
chaos and lower-order lococentricity respectively. The semiotic is anarchic,
pre-Oedipal, and polymorphous erotgenically, maternally oreinted, and involves
primary processes. The symbolic is Oedipalized, paternally oreinted, and involves
secondary processes. It is "order superimposed on the semiotic. The semiotic
overflows its boundaries . . . in madness, holiness and poetry.", and avant-guarde
art and texts (see http://www.blueberry-brain.org/chaosophy/kristeva.html).
She cautions that: "Current attempts to put an end to human subjecthood (to
the extent that it involves subjection to meaning) by proposing to replace it
with space (Borromean knots, morphology of catastrophies), of which the speaker
would be merely a phenomenal actualization, may seem appealing." If language
and language acquisition can impose limitations (subjugations) on an individual,
the use of sytems theory (catastrophe theory), may not entirely liberate the
subject (individual).

Clearly the imagination is enticed by intuitions of possibilities associated
with such strange shapes and their dynamic implications (http://www.cs.ubc.ca/nest/imager/contributions/scharein/KnotPlot.html).
The guidelines to writers of one fantasy tale specify that by "tesseracting"
an individual is able to move from one point to another without passing through
the intervening space -- reminiscent of properties attributed by physicists
to wormholes. With the enhancement of the quality of visual graphics, much creativity
will be unelashed into giving form to spaces with unusual properties that resonate
with subjective experience (for example, for knotting software, see http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/knotlink.htm).

The Union of International Associations is exploring possibility that the complex
networks of international organizations (30,000), world problems (56,000), and
strategies (32,000) in response to them, which it profiles and visualizes might
indeed be usefully understood and portrayed through knot theory. This might
provide radical new insights into "untangling" the Gordian Knots of
the social problematique that characterizes the present.

The isomorphism between the basic borromean 3-fold knot, the classic Venn diagram
and some celtic patterns offers an interesting mapping of the experienced relationship
between past, present and future. They draw attention to the different interfaces
between all three. These may also be explored as a form of temporal phase diagram.
Similary there are intriguing similarities between 4-fold mandalas and knots
(extensively linked on the web) which suggest, in the light of their articulations
in celtic patterns, the existence of stabilizing feedback loops and transformations
linking the psychic functions symbolized in depth psychology by earth, air,
fire and water. Further vital complexifications are suggested by the relationship
between mandalas and the dynamics of the enneagram (John Fudjack and Patricia
Dinkelaker, 1999 http://tap3x.net/EMBTI/j4selfb.html)

The celtic spiral symbol (above) from New Grange (Ireland, circa 2,000-1,000
BC) suggests continuous movement, the twin base spirals never meeting, always
opposed, interwoven, inseparable and interdependent, contained within a closed
but endless spiral. Whether or not this was a key to Celtic religious thought,
and the need of the two opposites for each other, their containment within the
evolutionary third, and the unity of the system makes good sense of an age-old
pattern.

Work cycle

The notion of a work cycle is introduced here because it is relatively clear
that a living system cannot exist in a state of stasis on interfaces between
past, present and future. Living is synonymous with one or more active work
cycles through which energy is moved through feedback loops to ensure integrity
in the moment. The most obvious in mammals may be the respiratory cycle. This
energy may take the form of attention -- even vigilance. Those drawn to the
enneagram are particularly attentive to the cyclic structure of work as mapped
by that diagram (see Anthony Blake. The Intelligent Enneagramhttp://www.duversity.org/archives/intellennea.html).
The structure might be usefully considered to map six intermediary positions
necessary to hold a relationship between past, present and future -- whether
as interfaces or different ways of understanding time.

The concept of a work cycle is basic to thermodynamics -- and is exemplified
by the Carnot cycle. The question here is whether this provides insights into
a necessary dynamic relationship between past, present and future in terms of
the nature and focus of attention. Is there a sense in which living embodies
some such cycle -- of which the the heat engine is merely a limited material
analogue? The heat engine cycle does indeed have to relate past, present and
future in order to sustain its activity.

Curiously it is Gregory Bateson in a section on Form, Substance and Difference
(http://www.tiac.net/users/knowweb/bateson.htm)
of his book Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) that relates the
depth psychology work of Carl Jung to the thermodynamics of Sadi Carnot. But
it is in another book, translated by Jung's colleague Richard Wilhelm (1929),
that Jung comments on a fundamental cycle identified in a Chinese text T'ai
I Chin Hua Tsung Chih (The Secret of the Golden Flower) -- more recently
translated by Thomas Cleary (1991). This focus has also been compared to the
Nestorian Gospel of St Thomas (http://www.netmastersinc.com/secrets/golden_flower1.htm)
-- although within the Christian tradition careful attention has indeed been
paid to the significance of a "rota" as a cycle of duty, of which
there may be musical variants. The much-cited Chinese work discusses the "circulation
of the light" of awareness through various conditions during meditation
reminiscent (if only in the metaphors used to describe them) of stages of the
Carnot heat cycle.

The insights of such circulation may also be evident in the psycho-social attraction
of certain pattern dances -- presumably providing some kind of time-binding
resonance transcending past, present and future for participants.

The past century has provided widespread familiarity with engines, notably
combustion engines in motorbikes and other vehicles. The operation of the piston
cycle has entered collective consciousness in many ways -- as well as the distinction
between 2-stroke engines and those with multiple cylinders. This suggests a
line of inquiry as to whether thinking itself can be understood as operating
in cyles that might be usefully modelled by such engines for many people. In
this sense a basic cycle would alternate between the extremes of any form of
polarized thinking -- with each extreme providing a turning point. One might
be associated with the charge that drives the cycle. Clearly this might be understood
as a cruder pattern than that associated with multiple cylinders -- if their
operation could be integrated to reinforce a common rotation. Of special interest
in this respect are rotary engines (cf the Wankel
rotary engine).

Related to such understanding of an engine is that of gearing whereby rapid
rotation is translated into slower and more powerful rotation that can perform
certain kinds of work. Many forms of thinking might be associated with rapid
cycles. These need to be geared down to speeds that can mesh with operations
in the material world (see Conceptual Birdcages and Functional Basket-weaving.
1980, https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/compbask.php#gear).
This challenge might be seen in relation to that of gearing down principle to
practice.

Earlier the question was raised of how to configure, juxtapose and superpose
sets of categories (3, 4, 5, etc) to create a "door frame" governing
integrative cognition -- to frame any response to the riddle of life in the
present. This challenge can now be presented dynamically. This is most easily
described in terms of a paticular kind of fair ground challenge involving a
a tunnel through which one must walk -- in which the frame of the tunnel rotates.
To make life difficult, the tunnel frame is made up of successive segments with
a triangular, square, pentagonal, hexagonal, or other cross-section, each rotating
independently. In the cognitive analogue however the challenge in the present
moment is to position relevant conceptual sets of 3, 4, 5, etc aspects (thus
essentially incommensurable) in relation to a common centre in order to move
navigate through them -- even if they rotate at different rates in relation
to one another around such a common axis. As in the segments of the fairground
tunnel, each "side" is effectively a trap to which it is a mistake
to cling more than temporarily -- but such features frame the cognitive doorway.
This challenge may also be described metaphorically by the geometry of magnetic
bottles used to contain plasma to ensure nuclear fusion, where containment can
only be successful if the plasma is effectively prevented from touching (and
being "quenched") by any such contact.

The conceptual implications of this challenge have been most clearly articulated
by Ron Atkin (1981) in describing the navigation of different degrees of complexity
in a multidimensional space. He illustrates the challenge by use of a simple
triangle (more).

These considerations raise the question of how fundamental sets of principles
are to govern behaviour, especially in the moment. Whether it be the basic "Liberty
/ Equality / Fraternity" that originated with the French Revolution, or
variants of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/univ.php)
with its 30 principles, it is how these governing principles relate to each
other dynamically, rather than statically (like a conceptual laundry list),
that is a vital key to viable navigation. There is also the intriguing possibility
that the associated patterns of "values" and "virtues" (so
extensively articulated in eastern belief systems) may in fact encode attitudinal
control "mechanisms" (and traps) for the effective navigation of knowledge
spaces in the moment (https://www.laetusinpraesens.org/docs/othwise.php#navig).

It is within this framework, and recalling the functioning of any engine-driven
vehicle, that interesting questions might be raised about what might be understood
by the following "verbs":

How does the future emerge into the present? How does potential become actuality?
What are the cognitive traps associated with phrases such as: "where does the
future come from" and "the far-distant future" ? How are present initiatives
established as future realities? Why does past understanding appear so quaint
from the present and what does this say of present understandings that are taken
so seriously now?

The sustainability of global conversation or dialogue is therefore viewed as
necessarily dynamic rather than static. Insights from chaos theory and strange
attractors merit attention (Judge, 1993b). Its meta-stable nature ensures its
coherence by engendering "futures". Global conversations thus evolve through
"generations", necessarily accompanied by schisms that challenge any previous
sense of coherence. "Participants" in a conversation today are the children
of those participating yesterday, or an hour ago -- even if they are physically
indistinguishable. As with computer backups, one can usefully speak of grandfather-father-son
relationships between one's own successive "incarnations" in social intercourse.

How then is the future generated? How does one understand the nature of a future
generation from one's current mode of comprehension? How does one comprehend
across the generation gap -- and seek comprehension in return -- if only by
oneself?

Whilst such questions are challenging for society as a whole, they are even
more challenging for oneself. Each person has multi-generational qualities,
from the "child within" to the nascent elder. In the process of maturation,
the challenges of communication between one's own internal generations become
increasingly evident. They can no longer be satisfactorily projected onto the
outside world.

How does one engender a future -- preferred or otherwise? Is there some internal
procreative process, as suggested by depth psychology's enthusiasm for alchemical
symbolism? Reproductive biology certainly achieves a future generation through
mating. How does a new generation of reality-handling acquire viability and
inspire confidence within one's own psyche? Can what is superseded be truly
cast off like a reptilian skin, or must past generations be carried with us
into the future --"unto seven generations"?

Whilst there is of course merit in speculating about future generations in
centuries or millennia to come, there is another kind of inquiry into future
generation which merits reflection. As implied above, a future generation, in
the developmental or psychological sense of the maturation of an individual,
has its own challenges. But of even greater challenge is the much more immediate
focus of how one engenders the immediate future -- over the next hours or minutes.

It is easy to argue that this has nothing to do with the "future" as framed
by this conference. But this may be a flaw in the way future studies is understood
and a reason for its marginalization. Do futurists suffer from conceptual presbyopia?
Failure to attend to how the immediate future is determined by "doing" in the
present moment, may obscure modes of understanding vital to meaningful insight
into the future of biological generations -- to the epochs in which future studies
may prefer to roam. Any sense of well-being is associated with the immediate
present, rather than with the distant future. It is now that the help from "You
and I" is required by the conference theme, whether for the young or the elderly.

How does future generation occur on this scale -- and what insights does it
offer for understanding on the larger scale? As various schools of meditation
have it, one attends to a certain complex of events for a while (seconds, minutes
or hours), as an act combining mindfulness, empathy and action -- with, or without,
others. Then, by distraction or choice, that focus dies and one passes on to
some other complex of events. This process can be experienced as a sequence
of generations of attention foci -- maybe returning cyclically to a former focus.
It is through this process that one engenders a future into which one is then
borne (Sogyal Rinpoche, 1994). Any practice, discipline or habit can be considered
a form of "meditation" in this sense.

When a generation is understood as taking some 14 "years", possibility of change
is perceived as limited by most. But understood as lived cycles of experience
many hundreds of "generations" may take place within that same period of years.
Such generations may be existentially more significant, and give rise to more
variety, than is often associated with conventional thinking about the future
100, 1,000 or 5,000 years hence -- which is usually unchallenged by the reality
of experiential change.Focus on the scope for change through psychological generation
may well offer vital clues to change over longer periods of years. Greater attentiveness
is therefore required to the potential emergence of fundamentally new varieties
of significance over such periods.

From this perspective the challenge becomes how creatively to traverse a succession
of generations -- the "Wheel of Life" for some Eastern religions (Sogyal Rinpoche,
1994). Various approaches might be taken to this psychological "reincarnation"
process through many "little deaths". The generations could be "managed", as
attempted by those favouring highly structured schedules (and armed with pocket
"organizers"). One contrast would be to live the succession completely spontaneously
as a child of the moment. They could be "navigated" with the spirit of an explorer,
entrepreneur or opportunist. They might even be "surfed". They could be treated
as an aesthetic exercise in composition or design -- "composing" a lifestyle
as explored by Mary Catherine Bateson (1990). Or, like a breeder, focus could
be placed on "breeding" better futures by combining suitable quality bloodlines
engendered in past experience. The process could even be treated as an exercise
in "gardening" a life -- life husbandry. In each case blending constraints from
the past with potential distractions by the unforeseen creates pitfalls and
opportunities. What strange new insights and disciplines will the future bring
to this process?